Lapse, relapse, collapse (this time is the last)
by lynne-monstr
Summary: After so long without the rush of a purposeful kill, that warehouse reminded Eliot of an addiction he thought he'd recovered from. Set during The Big Bang Job.


_Written for comment_fic. Summary is taken from the prompt._

* * *

The fight was over and done, and Eliot felt like he'd freed himself from a deep dark pit he hadn't even realized was suffocating him. Clearheaded, senses honed to a razor sharp edge. Unstoppable.

Around him, the warehouse buzzed with energy. If he was a more poetic man he might even have appreciated the contradiction, how a place full of the dead could pulse like a living thing, but his mind was engaged in more immediate matters.

The rush of the kill and the adrenaline lighting him up from inside. The harsh roar of his own breath in his ears. The way his knees throbbed from when he'd hit the concrete and how his ears rang with the echo of gunshots and grunts.

The weight of the guns in his hands.

Not like some fancy metaphor, either; the ammunition added an extra heft he was unaccustomed to these days. It'd been a long time since he held a loaded gun for more than a few seconds without ejecting the magazine. The instinct was so ingrained he barely thought about it much anymore.

It didn't always used to be that way.

(He doesn't disarm the guns for his own protection. He does it to protect people from _him_.)

Slipping back into old habits had been effortless, like rediscovering a pair of worn boots thought long gone but still as every bit as comfortable as remembered. He should've figured as much, but standing in the eye of the storm surrounded by flames and dead enemies, he found himself surprised by that simple fact.

At how easy it all was.

(He's heard the rumors spread about him, of course. Most everyone's heard. _Eliot Spencer left the game. Eliot Spencer's found a team and gone soft._ Laughter bubbles up in his throat and he makes no attempt to hold it back. The deep rumbling wraps snug around the echoes of gunfire in his ears. Let them call him soft, now.)

For a moment he paused to watch the light from the pyre dance over Chapman's body where it lay still among the boxes and crates at his feet. Flickers of red and orange that licked the edges of Eliot's own shadow. Dismissing the sight, his eyes scanned the empty space around him, seeking hidden alcoves and shadowed corners, calculating potential angles and trajectories. Every sense on alert and eager to catch the slightest hint of movement and put it down.

There was nothing in the dark or between the crackling columns of flame, and that's when it hit him like a freight train barreling dead center at his chest.

What he'd become. Again.

Disgust churned deep in his gut, crawled up his chest until it lodged right in his throat. He swallowed once, hard, as if that alone could push down the rising tide inside him. Not for what he'd done to the men around him – letting them get to Nate and his mysterious Italian had never been an option—but for his own reaction to it. He thought he'd left that behind him for good.

It would never leave, he realized. His fingers shook where they rested against the trigger guards.

Bodies on the floor and that familiar thrill racing in his veins that he couldn't quite bury. It was proof enough. No matter how many people they'd helped on Nate's crusade, Eliot himself hadn't changed. His chest suddenly felt a size too tight, like he couldn't get enough air into his lungs.

(He's not a good man. He knows enough to know those words could never describe him, not after the things he's done. Not a good man, but he'd thought – he'd hoped— maybe a _better_ man.

The thing about lying to yourself is that you don't realize it's a lie until it crumbles around you.)

After that, dropping the guns should've been easy. They shouldn't have lingered in his shaking hands, clutched tight in a death grip. The thought of dropping them shouldn't have felt like cutting out a part of himself.

But it did and Eliot wasn't sure he was willing to go through it again. Wasn't sure he'd survive it a second time.

_There's something wrong with you._

His own voice rang loud in his ears, stripped of the warmth and affection the words usually held. It always came down to this. Dirty hands could never be clean again, no matter how many times he scrubbed them raw. So why bother?

Something about the thought lit a spark in him. He'd faced down a lot of crap in his life and always came up swinging. He took the hits, he went down, and he got back up. That's just the way it went. The day he stopped would be the day he died.

And besides, he didn't need a reason. He had four.

The team – _his_ team – was still counting on him, even if he could never let them know what happened here. Because if there was one thing he'd never do while he still had breath, it was let those people down.

Slowly, he packed all the other feelings away, one by one until they were safely under lock and key once more. All those parts of himself that weren't who he was now. He shut away as much as he could and hoped it would be enough. The irony of it didn't escape him. He'd thrown his lot in with a band of thieves but this was one lock that was beyond even them. But that was okay; this was a lock that was best left shut, anyway. When it was done, he stood there for a moment, eyes taking a last sweep around the warehouse. He felt solid, steady, and nodded to himself.

In one movement he ejected the magazines from both guns and tossed the weapons to the ground.

Ignoring the sudden emptiness in his chest as the pieces clattered against the concrete, Eliot walked out into the sun and didn't look back.

It was over.

(It's never over.)


End file.
